First Day: Jetlag & The Peach Festival

Holy cow I'm in Korea! I arrived super early in the morning (around 5am) to Incheon Airport, met up with a bunch of other TaLK scholars and bused out to Jochiwon Campus of the Korean University! Quickly made a few friends, started a knitting circle while one of them taught me to crochet, had lunch and then went off to the Peach Festival.



The Peach Festival was only a few minutes walk from our dorms and was a popping place. They had many booths with different cultural activities, some local and some international, and sold many peach based products. With my friend Jennifer acting as translator I also got to try Peach Makkulee (sort of like Sake) and bought an entire bottle for 2,000 won ($2). To finish off the festival my friends and I had to try the popular local dish, steamed silk worm larvae. Well we each ate one, decided we had enough (it wasn't completely disgusting, just unpleasant), and so gave the rest to a bunch of old Korean men standing next to us. I think we made their day!

After coming back to the dorms the jetlag was really starting to kick in so I took a mini nap, had dinner (my 4th meal of the day if you include breakfast on the plane at 3am local time), forced myself to stay up a few more hours and passed out around 9pm to the sounds of some pretty intense fireworks ending the Peach Festival. David got in around that time and proceeded to call me around 10pm. I was glad to know he made it safely but pretty pissed I was woken up. (Sorry David, if I was rude)

And yeah, that concluded the longest (2am to 10pm so 20 hours) first day in Korea! ^_^V

PS Waiting on a roommate to join me...

3 Comments

  1. dang, intense first day! I was actually wondering what those larvae looked like when you told me about then so the pic helps :-P sounds like you landed on a good day though! I'm glad you made friends so quickly, although I knew you wouldn't have trouble making friends, just cuz...well let's face it, you're YOU!

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  2. Leave it to you to start a knitting circle on your first day. Glad you're having fun -- but those larvae look disgusting. Kudos to you for being brave enough to eat it. :)
    <3

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  3. Ah, Bonn Deggi, one of the few foods I'd never try twice... In korea street food is where its at. Try the squid legs fried in butter and served up like french fries, but only if you have someone to share them with! They're chewy enough to wear out your jaw. Also, ya gotta love how ridiculously cheap the local hooch is!! Kindly post up a map of where you're at for the rest of us.



    -Lupe

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